All posts tagged Alex Salmond

The biggest victor in this week’s local British elections is most certainly the Scottish National Party that has swept the board in the Scottish Executive.

With some counts still to declare, the SNP has won an overall majority in the Edinburgh parliament, seizing at least 26 seats from rival parties to win a current tally of 65 of the house’s 129 seats.

This is a party that before the financial crisis wanted to model its economy on Iceland and Ireland; whose election manifesto was littered with unfunded promises; and this is the party behind the early release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

At least one party is benefiting from the Gulf oil spill that has brought misery to thousands and disaster for BP PLC: the Scottish government.

Almost one year since Scotland released the Lockerbie bomber, on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had no more than three months to live, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi is still alive in Libya.

U.S. anger and media interest, however, seem to focus on the British government and the heavily out of favor BP, given that the latter lobbied the former to complete a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill rejected releasing Mr. al-Megrahi based on any deal between the U.K. and Libya, and instead released him on compassionate grounds.